Halo: Life and Liberation
by Infindo
Summary: This is a story about the heroic actions of a handful of Spartan III's as they fend off the Covenant from the Planet Quelt, a once prosperous place that has descended into anarchy with the guiding hand of the Insurrection.
1. Prologue

This is a story about the heroic actions of a handful of Spartan III's as they fend off the Covenant from the Planet Quelt, a once prosperous place that has descended into anarchy with the guiding hand of the Insurrection. This is the prologue to the story.

Prologue: Terra Firma

Planet Digamma 6, commonly know as Quelt, was discovered in 2503 by refugees fleeing the nearby planet Gadde, after the planet fell into the hands of the mighty Covenant. The Covenant is a conglomerate of alien races, with little similarities between them, except for the concept of "The Great Journey". For the residents of Gadde, their home lay on the path of the Covenant's "Great Journey" and was destroyed, or "glassed", by the Covenant Corvette-Class _Bastion of Clarity_. The people of Gadde found Quelt by accident; a navigational error in their small jumper craft sent several ships crashing violently into the planet's rocky surface. Only eleven survived the crash. A few wandered off into the dusty, toxic air, never to be seen again. Two survivors, Gengori Havanas and his wife Tenora spent days frantically trying to radio any UNSC (United Nations Space Command) Cruisers in the area. On their 7th day on the planet's surface, the Gengori made contact with the crew of the cruiser _Carpe Diem_ and were relieved to find warm beds and fresh food awaiting them on board.

In the following months, the UNSC _Carpe Diem_ and other battle cruisers bombarded Gadde till the weapons operators couldn't tell the planet apart from the huge asteroids that flew rampantly around the sector. The four remaining survivors of Gadde watched from the _Carpe Diem_ as MAC Blasts and missile strikes decimated their home. When the UNSC had decided to stop, little remained of the Havanas' once green and lively planet. Now, the Havanas' were faced with a painful ultimatum. Stay with the UNSC, or return to Earth. They went to Hyrum Manassas, the UNSC Chairman of Planetary Colonization, and pleaded with him for a charter and a permit to colonize the planet that saved their lives from the Covenant. A month later, Gengori, Tenora, and 400 other colonists, aboard the _Prospector's Ghost_ arrived at Quelt. However, they were soon faced with several problems; first, Quelt's atmosphere was comprised of less that 10% oxygen, and less than 25% nitrogen. Most of the air was a dangerous mixture of methane and sulfur gasses. As a result, the _Prospector's Ghost _couldn't enter the atmosphere. Wary of this, Manassas sent another ship, _Beyond the Shadow of Doubt _armed with the P.H.K (Planetary Hospitability Kit) to clear the atmosphere. The process was slow and painstaking, requiring HAZMAT crews to regularly inspect the machine as it converted the bitter gasses into clean air. After almost eight months, Gengori became the first person to breathe the clean air on the planet's surface. With the clean air came many new species of plants, never before discovered by scientists. As the atmosphere cleared, so did the water. Soon, the seas of the once dry planet became filled with crystal clear water. Gengori felt the first raindrops fall on Quelt four months after the P.H.K was activated.

Soon, scientists, chemists, biologists, reporters, and soldiers arrived, and the population of Quelt grew from 500 to 50,000 in a few short years. Soon, several distinct cities developed, with the gleaming towers of Ecladia at its center. The planet's four continents soon became their own distinct cultures, and soon, Ecladia opened the Legislative Assembly, with delegates from each of Quelt's quarters, as they were called. Representatives from Barron, Satin, Vennin, and Henden met yearly to discuss issues of importance.

One issue, however, came up more than any other: The Insurrection. The Insurrection found its roots in the Outer Colonies, where groups of disgruntled colonists that demanded independence from Earth, and it's leaders were willing to sacrifice any amount of men to obtain it. While in the rest of the colonized universe the Insurrection had been all but erased, on Quelt, it grew until its number far outgrew those of the Legisltive Assembly's army. Soon, the Assembly Hall at Ecladia was surrounded, ransacked, and burnt to the ground. The planet's frightened chairmen fled and the planet sank into a deep depression. The planet's cities were pillaged and not even the walled city of Dempsey was spared. The lights atop the Topaz Towers died out forever on December 25th, 2530. Most of the inner cities were abandoned, and the members of high society either fled the planet or died on it. Gengori, now well into his ninties, was killed during an Insurrectionist suicide attack on the New Geneva Spaceport.

In 2535, an anonymous informant from the Beta-5 division of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) arrived with news of a "development". In 2512, researchers in the Beta-5 group developed a complex exoskeleton system for soldiers, coined Project MJOLNIR. Five years later, an ambitious group of ONI officials, known as Section 3 in the official reports, selected a group of 150 children, aged 5 to 7 years, to become the next breed of super-soldiers, humanities trump card; The Spartans. After the success of the Spartan II program (the first was kept under secrecy due to the circumstances surrounding the program's failure), many, including one Colonel James Ackerson, wanted to play on this success.

When news of the Insurrections hostile take over of the planet reached the ears of Fleet Admiral Stephen Tanner, he was mortified, and promptly asked UNSC high command for clearance to lead an invasion. However, Tanner's fleet was far out of slip-space range for a conceivable journey. Instead, Tanner was given thirteen Spartan-III super soldiers, which he was free to use at his leisure. The informant stated that ONI had "tactically significant reasons for reclaiming and holding Quelt from the Insurrection and, if it should come to it, the Covenant ". By 2550, all but three of the Spartan-III's were dead. The remaining three, Amry-B081, Sewell-G222, and Benjamin-B238, were grouped together under the designation Silver Team. Each wary of the fate of the other ten Spartans, the team was hesitant and stagnant to act on Tanner's orders.

Realizing that he could no longer continue operations on Quelt, Tanner left the planet to cut his losses, and the Spartans were left to their own devices. ONI was livid, and sent several representatives to UNSC high command on Earth. They were met with less than a warm welcome. Sensing that the UNSC would no longer help them, ONI dispatched the elite Headhunter unit Whiskey Team to Quelt to put down the rebellion and find Silver Team. Seven years later, while en route to Quelt, Whiskey Team's two-man team came under fire from a Covenant Corvette, non other than the _Bastion of Clarity_, the same ship that had brought about the discovery of Quelt thirty years before. While one Spartan, Charlotte-A046, narrowly escaped, her partner, Stanford-A009, was not so lucky. He was struck by a plasma-torpedo while the pair fled from a fleet of Covenant Banshee fighter craft. Overhearing Whiskey Team's numerous distress calls, the nearby UNSC Cruiser _Dangerous Pride_ rushed to the scene and crippled the fleeing Corvette with a Shiva-Tactical Nuke strike. An unconscious Charlotte –A046 was brought aboard carrying only a combat knife and Stanford's dog tags. Captain Dennis Ramsey, a seasoned veteran of many battles against the Covenant with over forty confirmed ships neutralized, took the reigns of ONI's military exploits on Quelt. Since then, Silver Team, under the leadership of Spartan-046, has completed dozens of operations in the traditional ONI discretion, usually cleaning up small Insurrection outposts scattered around the planet in what some would later call "… a gross misallocation of valuable resources." The Spartan team gained infamy among the Insurrection, eventually earning the title of "Boogy Men".

Meanwhile, in the ruins of Gadde, the Covenant war machine lay in wait, lurking. Led by the fearless Kidar 'Sykdam, known to the UNSC as "That Split-Lip Sonofabitch", the Covenant's sheer numbers seemed unstoppable. Soon, the Covenant Capitol Ship _Indomitable Will_ arrived undetected and moved into position, waiting to claim something buried under the surface of Quelt. Rumors circulated amongst UNSC ranks that the Covenant was planning something big. As one soldier said "We couldn't have been sure what it was but… it was just sort of a feeling we had, that something bad was going to happen."

Our story begins on December 13th, 2553. By now, Silver Team has been operational for almost three years. The squad, despite being active for so long, still acts as a dysfunctional family. Captain Dennis Ramsey has kept his watchful eye over Quelt, and slowly but surely, the Insurrection is being snuffed out. Silver Team is currently en route to a small fishing village, Delmargio, to investigate Insurrectionist activity in the area.


	2. 1 In The Winter

Chapter I. In the Winter

Village of Delmargio, Planet Quelt, December 13th, 2547

Charlotte sat with her helmet in her lap and her eyes closed. The jostling of the Falcon in the gusting winds and freezing snow did little to help her sleep. While she never technically had to, she felt it natural to squeeze some moments of rest between the blinking of her HUD and the artificial transparency of her sniper scope. As she finally began to nod off, a finger tapped her shoulder.

"Nodding off on us, eh One?" smirked her squad mate from behind her. She shook her head and punched him in the shoulder. He recoiled and smiled again, giving a Marine seated across from him a fist bump.

The voice of Captain Dennis Ramsey crackled in the Falcon's internal speakers.

"Silver Team, what's your status?" barked the Captain. There was a sense of irritation in his voice that Charlotte wasn't used to.

"En route as we speak sir." Charlotte replied, doing up her long brown hair and snapping her helmet in place. She felt the AC unit in her helmet activate as the HUD whirred to life.

"Good," he replied "Radio back when you arrive."

"Silver One out." she finished. She tapped twice on the hull of the Falcon, signaling the pilot to slow on their decent. The small coastal village came into sharp focus. The Falcon circled around a small cliff before silently touching down. Her boots sank into the deep snow as she hopped from the turret seat.

"Alright, let's keep this one quiet," she said as she removed a SRS955 rifle from a shelf over her head and began carefully loading the .50 caliber rounds into the magazines around her waste.

"Whatever you say, ma'am." jeered Ben from behind her. He shouldered a Rocket Launcher and primed the M7 submachine gun on his hip.

Ben was a prick. How someone like him made it this far was far beyond her. He was the team's demolitions expert, and while he was damn good at what he did, he didn't always adhere to the objective.

A hand slapped him on the back. It belonged to Amry, the eldest, and self-proclaimed wisest, member of Silver Team.

"Show some respect, Lieutenant. She'll kick your ass." He said punching Ben in the arm. Ben flinched and rubbed the spot below his shoulder plate.

"Spartans, let's move." Charlotte said, holding her hand in a clenched fist, giving the signal to advance.

"You and Sewell take point. Amry and I will cover you. Get that terminal and get out. Understood?"

"Yes... Sir."

With that, the Spartan III's trudged down the steep dirt incline towards the knee-high fences surrounding the shantytown. It was surreal to see such a place nowadays, Charlotte thought to herself. Humanity had come so far in such a short time, but places like this one still existed. Run down, decrepit fishing villages where life depends on the changing seasons.

"So, what do you think?" Amry eventually asked as they walked back towards the landing zone. Amry was the talkative one, but he always cared. That's what Charlotte admired most about him. While brutally honest at times, he was an altruist in all respects. The words "Speak softly" and "Carry a big stick" were carved into his armor, just above the forearm. Charlotte wasn't sure why, but Amry always seemed to be full of anecdotal quotes that ever so perfectly fit their situation.

"I'm not sure. Ramsey seemed pretty worried about this computer module. I can't imagine why, or what is in that thing."

"No," he said waving his hand to disrupt her thought, " I meant Sewell. What'd you say my chances are with her?"

Charlotte sighed and shoved Amry affectionately. The pair reached the top of the cliff. From their lofty perch, they had a view of the rundown and decrepit coastal town. DelMargio, a small town of less than a hundred was on Quelt's Eastern Sea. A bountiful harvest of the Decauti Fish arrived each year, making DelMargio a bustling port city in the spring. With the winter freeze, however, the city slowed to a crawl; people shut themselves on their homes and seldom left. Now, Charlotte and Silver Actual, a crack team of Spartan III's, slogged through the snow, approaching a small tin-roofed shack closest to the cliff face.

"Alright, we're going in." Ben's voice crackled in her earpiece. Charlotte frowned. She was a little uneasy about her transfer. She understood that the fabled Whiskey Team no longer existed and had dispersed following Stanford's death, but she found that Silver team lacked the... focus that she valued so much about Whiskey Team. When she had arrived on Quelt last year, Silver team was running anti-Insurrectionist missions for the Lieutenant Governor's office; a job clearly unfit for Spartans. She was disappointed, and her teammates didn't help alleviate her concerns.

"Charlotte, I've got contacts on thermal, mind givin' us a hand?" asked Ben nonchalantly. Charlotte could see a scared child peering through a side window directly at her. The child tugged on her mother's tattered dress anxiously and pointing towards Charlotte's position. She took her daughter by the arm and brought her away from the window.

"Disengage three, civvies inside. Copy, civvies inside."

"Copy, moving to the..." began Ben. His voice trailed off.

"What the hell?" muttered Sewell in her thick French accent.

"Three, Four, what is going on down there?"

Charlotte didn't get an answer for several minutes. She was beginning to lose her patience when Ben finally said: "Char, you and Amry'd better come get a look at this.

Charlotte nodded to Amry and the two skidded down the rocky embankment. The rounded a corner and saw Ben and Sewell looking into a hole in the dirt. She couldn't see their faces, but she could tell their mouths were open in disbelief. What they saw next made Amry take a confused step backward. Before them was a hole, no wider than a Spartan, but twice as deep. Inside lay the mangled corpses of DelMargian peasants. Scattered about the bodies were rose petals.

"The hell..." Charlotte stammered.

She had seen many horrifying things in her service, but never before had she seen a mass grave like this one. The bodies were dressed in rags; all face down with brutal gashes on their backs. Pools of crimson blood trickled over the lifeless corpses and accumulated in thick pools at the bottom of the hole. Each of the bodies had been horribly mutilated, far beyond the point of recognition. Charlotte closed her eyes, but the image of the mangled bodies was burned into her retinas.

A few villagers slowly peeked their heads out from behind their homes. A teenaged girl wrapped in a ratty blanket stepped forward and approached the Spartans. A few of her fellow peasants recoiled as she slowly walked towards the hulking metal soldiers standing by the open grave.

Sewell was the first to notice the approaching girl and extended a hand towards her. The crowd gasped and the girl stepped back in fright. The villager pulled the frayed end of her blanket over her mouth and pulled her bangs from her eyes.

"Don't worry. De'Attoro Nel Aldun." she said, removing her helmet. Seeing a human behind the mirrored faceplate gave the girl some closure and Sewell's fellow Spartans soon followed suit. The girl mumbled an incoherent sentence in a language that Charlotte couldn't understand and took a few steps back, staring intently at her leather sandals.

"What's going on?" muttered Ben to Sewell. He had stopped staring at the corpses and was now shifting his gaze between the girl and the other villagers. His fingers twitched anxiously on the grip of his submachine gun.

"She says that the 'visitors' did this." She said, pointing to the grave.

"Ask her if any of them speak English," Charlotte interrupted. "Maybe these 'visitors' are the Insurrection. If we can find them-"

"Excuse me," said an elderly woman in fractured English. "Perhaps I could help."

Charlotte stepped forward, slung her sniper rifle over her shoulder, and placed her helmet in the firm snow.

"My name is Spartan 046 Charlotte, this is Silver Team. Would you happen to know anything about the Insurrection? Like, their plans here, or any technology they might have stored here?"

"Follow," the woman said. She took the girl's hand and walked slowly towards a squat building at the end of the frost-covered road. Sewell looked inquisitively at Charlotte, waiting for her to say something.

Ben and Amry exchanged confused glances. It seemed as though this woman hadn't understood Charlotte's question.

"Sir?" Amry said moving to Charlotte's side.

"Let's move." Charlotte said. She snapped her helmet in place and drew her M6 pistol from its hip holster.

The woman led the Spartans down the narrow dirt streets. Curious villagers congregated in alleyways to watch the parade of super soldiers. This reminded Charlotte of an op she ran with Whiskey Team in New Potsdam, long before the Revolution...

"I don't like this place. Look at these rock formations, they're perfect sniper's nests. We are _begging _to be ambushed," remarked Ben. Charlotte knew he was being himself, but she sensed an unusual feeling of fear in his voice.

Dressed in Arctic weather camouflage, the Spartans stood out like sore thumbs in the brown and black wooden city. While known throughout the Spartan-III program for her skills as a sniper, Charlotte also had a reputation for being able to disappear anywhere. But even she found her current surroundings disadvantageous.

"Excuse me," interrupted Ben, "But where are we going?" He began to fiddle with the settings of his M7.

"We are going to the factory." She said, keeping her back turned to the Spartans. She stopped and crossed her hands behind her back. Turning slowly, she stepped over a wire in the ground.

Charlotte and Amry took notice of the booby trap at the same time. Charlotte tackled Ben to the ground while Amry and Sewell leveled their Submachine guns on the old woman, who was now holding a bizarre silver pistol to the girl's head.

Lines in the snow snapped back and retreated into the houses. A second passed and a deafening roar engulfed the town. The houses to the group's immediate left and right exploded, flinging lethal shrapnel in every direction. The wood scraps bounced harmlessly off the Spartan's armor, but nearby the marine detachment was not so lucky. All three of them dropped do the ground dead.

Charlotte heard the scamper of footsteps on rooftops and in the tall grasses above them. She scanned the ridgeline for Innies, but saw none.

"Spartans!" Charlotte barked into her com," Form up on me. Now!" Ben and Sewell lumbered over to Charlotte, now positioned behind a large boulder.

"Where's Amry?" She activated her smoke filter and peered into the darkness. She saw Amry, doubled over, clutching his side. He had been hit by one of the claymores. She tapped Sewell on the shoulder and pointed to Amry's position.

"Well," panted Ben, out of breath and still in shock from the blast, "I'd hate to say 'I told you so' but-"

"Can it. We've got to regroup. Find out where these guys are."

Sewell sprinted back to the rock with Amry draped over her shoulder. She laid him down and activated the TEAMBIO function of her HUD.

"His vitals aren't too elevated. His heart rate is a little fast, but I'll take care of him." She nodded to Charlotte. You go, she thought.

"Ben, let's get through the middle while there's still some smoke left. Take this." she said, taking the MCAW Shotgun off of Amry's unconscious body and thrusting it into his arms. He darted around the rock and slid in behind the charred remains of a wooden hut. Bullets ripped holes in the flimsy wood planks around him,but he stayed put.

The first thing Charlotte felt as she stood up and steadied her pistol was the irritating twang of bullets on her shoulder. The shots sprayed around Charlotte,only a few hitting her. FK8's she thought. The Plumber's Delight. The FK8 was a civilian weapon, popular in the Insurrection. It was light, simple, and cheap. The nine-millimeter rounds were effective against "soft" targets.

Fortunately, Charlotte and her comrades were not "soft" target and the rounds harmlessly bounced off her armor. She lowered her head and moved in front of Sewall and Amry, emptying her M6's magazine into three men crawling around her left flank.

She ducked down and lobbed a smoke grenade into the middle of the road. The clatter of FK8's and the shrill voices of Innies filled the air.

"Charlotte," Ben struggled to say through his mic, "This is bad. Where the hell is our air support?"

"Gone," she said. Her pistol made a hollow clicking sound, and she threw it to the ground, "Something's jamming our link to Ramsey. We're screwed if we don't think of something quickly!"

Bullets peppered the rocks as the Insurrection's numbers grew. The peasants were slowly advancing on the rock, seeing that their attackers were distraught.

Pulse racing, Charlotte did the only thing she could think of; she drew her knife and ran full speed towards the nearest rebel. Charlotte could see his eyes widening as he frantically tried to reload, but her knife had already entered his neck with a subtle crack. Clutching the man by the shirt, Charlotte hurled the bewildered rebel into his closest comrade, pinning them both to a nearby post. Before any nearby rebels could react, they too were dispatched by 7 inches of cold steel.

Ben peered over his cover to see that Charlotte had turned her attention to a middle aged DelMargian wielding a switchblade. He squeezed off two shots into his torso. The man spun on his heels and dropped to the ground. Ben slowly emerged from cover to see Charlotte clutching the wounded rebel in one hand and her knife in the other. The knife was dripping with blood, the blade was practically covered in the crimson goo.

Charlotte threw the frightened man to the ground and stamped his chest with her boot.

"Alright, where is it?" she said.

"Charlotte," whispered Sewall into her mic, "I've got a fix on the data terminal, forget him. Amry's operational again, so we should get moving-"

Her sentence was interrupted by a gun shot on the other end of the line.

Charlotte dropped the peasant's lifeless corpse into the grave behind her and examined the dead bodies scattered around the street.

"Jeez Char, what did you do to these guys?" asked Ben, moving a dead peasant aside with his boot. Charlotte said nothing.

"You guys see anything... odd about these peasants?" Sewall said, unwrapping a rebels cloth headdress.

"These aren't DelMargians." Charlotte added. She was leaning on a nearby boulder staring towards the sea, he thoughts elsewhere.

"She's right," Sewall said. "These troops are too pale and muscular to be Innies. I think they are soldiers. Trained soldiers."

Ben removed his helmet and scratched his head. His hands moved from his head to his chin, deep in concentration.

"Well, we should keep looking. Ben, you and Amry clean up and secure these civilians. Sewall, you're with me."

As the pair approached the end of the dirt road, Sewall knelt down and examined something on the ground.

"Look at this." she said clutching the small pistol that the elderly woman was holding.

"Covenant?" Charlotte asked. She had seen similar weapons in the hands of Covenant before, but she hadn't seen many humans familiar with the technology.

"Yeah, definitely Covenant. Plasma rounds, looks empty." Sewall said turning over the pistol in her hands. Ben and Amry limped up the dusty road. Amry's arm was covered in dried blood and Ben's red shoulder plate was covered in dirt, pieces of shrapnel still lodged in the thick polymer.

"I think we should-" Charlotte began. Before she could finish, she was interrupted by a massive explosion. The blast shook the town to it's core; toppling the small shacks and ripping huge tears in the rocky slopes. The deafening roar brought the Spartans to their knees, clutching their helmets in earsplitting, agonizing pain. Charlotte tore her helmet from her head and let out a sigh; a mix of relief and pain, the high pitched noise echoed in her head, piercing her ear drums as it bounced off the bones of her skull. The sound rung out in the still air like a shriek in an empty hallway, but the villagers just stood in amazement as the armored war machines were thrown to the ground. All they could hear was the wind blowing and the subtle hissing of hot lead.

As the sound subsided, Charlotte picked herself up from the ground, her ears still ringing. She propped Ben against a nearby rubble pile and tapped his visor.

"Heh, still alive I see," she said placing a hand on his shoulder, "Too bad, I was looking forward to burying you."

"I-I hate this town," he stammered.

"Sewall, what was that?" Charlotte asked, wiping dust from her shoulder. Sewall was helping Amry up. The battered Spartan stood and shook his head.

"Nuclear?" he asked cracking his neck.

"Hardly, that was supersonic, high velocity. If I had to guess, probably plasma fuelled."

"Well, I don't think we have to worry about that data terminal anymore." Ben added picking a shattered computer screen from the ground and tapping the display with his finger.

"He's right," Sewall confirmed as she punched a few keys on her wrist piece, "I've lost the signal. We're clear. It looks like we've got a channel to HQ."

"Ramsey, this is Silver One. The, uh, data terminal is eliminated, can we get a exfil?"

"Copy that Silver One. Silver Actual out."

Charlotte gave a nod to her squad and began to return to the bluffs.

"Covenant?" she heard Ben ask, "I can't believe it."

Neither can I. She kept her thought to herself.


	3. 2 Change Of Plans

Chapter 2. The Hunted becomes the Hunters

ONI CYCLOPS Base, Planet Quelt, December 14th, 2547.

"Baseplate, this is Kilo-Six-Four reporting in. Everything's quiet here. Requesting new directive."

"That's a negative Six-Four. ONI wants all Egret Units in the air until we can be certain that Sector 4 is clear."

"Copy that. Kilo-Six-Four out."

Mic operator Steven Bates snapped off his headset and took a sip of his iced coffee. He ran his fingers through his sandy blonde hair and let out a deep sigh. It had been a long week and Steven had been looking forward to using his final vacation days. Unfortunately, since ONI had become increasingly paranoid about the Insurrection, his shifts had become longer and his patience was beginning to dwindle.

Now, he sat glued to his monitors, watching the darkness of the coming night engulf the rocky shorelines of Quelt's Hyaline Coast. It was Stephen and the crew of ONI CYCLOPS base to monitor these shores, and make sure the Insurrection was kept under a constant vigil. Using the UNSC's speedy recon planes, called Egrets, CYCLOPS Base had access to constant visuals of sensitive areas. Steven enjoyed having this eye in the sky. It gave him a feeling of omnipresence, a feeling of power far greater than himself.

"All units, this is Baseplate. We need all Egret Units to do one more sweep of Sectors 3, 4 and 8. Do you copy?" he said. Five copies came in. Odd, he thought, one short.

"Kilo Six-Four, do you copy?" he said, frantically scanning his monitors for Kilo-Six-Four's feed. The holo-screen showed a small power plant nestled in the cliffs off Quelt's Crimson Sea.

Something was wrong. Steven could clearly see that Kilo-Six-Four's camera wasn't moving. A few thin shadows moved to the left of the camera, the image blurred by dirt on the lens. He could see a light emanating from the right side of the lens, but it was probably the vehicles light beacons.

He switched his microphone channel to Colonel Frederick Brightly. Brightly was the current ONI Intelligence officer working at CYCLOPS Base. He was a short, plump man with rosy cheeks and a short temper. Steven gave him some credit though. He ran a tight ship and, in the 3 months under his command, CYCLOPS was running at peak efficiency.

"Sir? There's a problem with one of the Egret feeds. Six-Four's camera is off."

"What do you mean, off?" Brightly shot back. Steven had forgotten that Brightly was defensive of his hardware. He had every right to after all; he designed them himself. When Brightly had taken the reigns at CYCLOPS, he had forgone the holo-screens and data pads that he was trained with for the more ancient physical monitors. Steven could only imagine why. The Egrets, the monitors, the feeds, had all been of Brightly's design. The man was brilliant; there was no denying that.

"The cams aren't moving. It's like the Egret landed."

"Did it ever occur to you," he said in his usually mixture of sarcasm and anger, "that maybe the Egret actually DID land? Now please, just get back to your monitors."

"Sorry sir." Steven said, humiliated. He slumped back in his swivel chair and tapped his pen on his desk. The only noise in the room was the subtle buzzing of the computer monitors.

Stephen sat alone thinking of his vacation, his family, and a tall pint of beer. He was happy; content with the course his life was taking. Just as he had slipped into a world outside of the iron parameters of his office, the fluorescent lights overhead flickered and went out. His monitors soon followed, flashing first and then going dark. The small room flooded with darkness. Steven opened a drawer under his desk and found a small flashlight and his handgun. A subtle roar rumbled through the hallway as the red backup generators clicked on, bathing his room in a deep crimson hue.

His cellphone rang. He jumped a little, surprised by its animatronic ring-tone.

"Bates."

"Yeah, Bates? This is Cahill from down the hall, did you just lose power?"

"Uh, yeah I did. How are you-"

Stephen's thoughts were interrupted by the clunk of Cahill's microphone falling to the floor. After that, silence. Other than the occasional shuffling on the other end of the line, Stephen could only wait to see what happened. Stephen whispered into the mic several times, but with no response. Finally, a dull rumble shook the compound. On Cahill's end of the line, he heard a loud crash and heavy footsteps. Stephen then heard the most terrifying sound in his life: the grumbling noise of Sangheili warriors. He couldn't understand what they were saying, but an ear-curdling scream that certainly came from Cahill confirmed his suspicions: Cahill was dead, and Stephen was next. He raised his pistol and hid behind his desk, looking fixedly at the door. The footsteps of a lumbering Sangheili commando pierced the tense silence in his small room. Stephen could clearly make out the shadows passing in front of the door. Two sets of feet stopped in front of the door. He held his breath, doing the best he could to control his breathing and make as little noise as he could. His muscles relaxed as the shadows passed.

"Hello?" He said into his emergency radio, "This is Steven Bates from ONI CYCLOPS Base; we've lost primary power and need any response. I have reason to believe that the Covenant has infiltrated the base, is anyone there?"

"Copy, CYCLOPS Base, we read you. We'll get an extraction team to you ASAP," replied the voice of Dennis Ramsey.

Letting out a sigh of relief, he loosened his grip on his pistol and took a few heavy breaths. Something moved outside the door, and three pairs of shadowy feet appeared at the door. A few grumbles caused Stephen to tense again, this time, however, he lost his balance and toppled helplessly to the floor. His pistol clattered to the ground beside him, just out of reach. The door flew off its hinges and a squad of Sangheili warriors burst in. The first pinned Stephen to the ground with a massive pronged foot. The other two turned the room on its ear, smashing the monitors and tearing out the drawers from his desk. Finally, satisfied with the mess they made, the two other left, leaving Stephen alone with the single Sangheili. It drew its Energy Sword. Stephen had never seen the razor sharp blade of superheated plasma in person, only in pictures. As the Elite drew it with a deafening crack, Stephen could feel the intense heat the weapon gave off, nearly burning the skin on his arms. Stephen was doomed; he was staring into the vorpal face of death. He never got a chance to complete his final thoughts, and like that, Stephen Garrison Bates was dead.

UNSC _Dangerous Pride,_ High Orbit above Planet Quelt. December 14th, 2547

The UNSC Flagship _Dangerous Pride_ sat comfortably in high orbit above the shining blue seas of Quelt. The bridge was alive with activity; monitors blinked and radars pinged. Officers scrambled around the room, managing temperature controls and engine function. A few of the ships tacticians huddled around a holographic staging area where the raging and bloody battles happening on the planet's surface were represented as little dots blowing different colored ones. Amidst this chaos, Captain Dennis Ramsey stood with his arms crossed behind his back in front of a whirring display of holo-screens, most displaying various planets dotted with red X's. In the center of the room was a massive display of Quelt and the space around it. A few lights pinged on the map every so often. Ramsey was turned his attention to the model, studying it as though his was looking right through to the planet's core. The doors behind him slid open and two Spartans clad in dark green Armor entered and stood at attention.

"46, 89. Things have changed. ONI has some large shoes to fill."

"And you want us?" asked Spartan-G089. She held her helmet at her side and scratched her short, red hair. The deep blue light of her birthplace, Quelt, transfixed her, the blue sphere hovering before her seemed so close, but she could never touch it. It had been so long since she had been on the planet; she had forgotten where she had lived, and the feeling of mud beneath her feet.

"Precisely. As you are well aware ONI has become increasingly worried about the recent Covenant activities on Reach, Onyx, and Quelt. As you also are well aware, every Spartan III from Alpha company was killed in Operation: PROMETHEUS. That however isn't really true. Several of them were removed before the operation. You would know about that, wouldn't you Charlotte?"

Violet-G089 looked at the woman next to her. Charlotte was staring intently at Captain Ramsey's boots. Her green eyes shone in the blinking monitors.

"You?" Violet said, pointing an inquisitive finger at the figure on her left.

"Charlotte was removed just before the op. Ackerson viewed her as... different than others."

"Different, sir?"

Charlotte extended a hand in front of Violet. She noticed her wrist, above a small mounted GPS unit was a row of faint white scratch marks. A tally. Of what, Violet couldn't be sure.

"Were you ever briefed on the Cameron Protocol?"

"No. I mean…I've heard things but-"

"The Cameron Protocol was a declaration of total war. No mercy towards the Covenant. So, the UNSC took advantage of this and formed what they called "Headhunter Units": hyper-lethal vectors capable of untold destruction. We would go out for months, deep behind the Covenant Lines, wreaking havoc in anyway we saw fit."

"I've heard of those. There where a few of them, teams of two right?"

"Yes. There where 26 of us, assigned to 12 teams. Most of us were there because we didn't 'play well with others.' At least, that's what Colonel Ackerson told us. I was in Whiskey Team-" her voice faltered, "Whiskey Team. We were an asset detainment and elimination unit. Stanford and I. Those were different times." Charlotte spoke in fragmented sentences, halting in mid-sentence to collect herself. Violet could tell that this was a touchy subject.

"Anyway," interrupted Ramsey, "If you haven't already guessed, ONI is trying to reform these teams, and we need you two. We need a team with your unique... skills." He said, nodding to Violet. She shifted a little and joined Charlotte in staring at Ramsey's boots.

"Now," he said, " as for your first assignment, a few hours ago, an Egret Studies and Observation craft spotted possible Insurrection targets at the Kymygnar Power Plant on the Hyaline Coast. However, we believe that this 'Insurrection activity' is Covenant, under the guise of the local rebels. It recorded this before going down over the power plant." Ramsey pointed to the large projector in the middle of the floor. A blurry scene came into focus. The Spartans could clearly make out movement on the ground, and the familiar blue sheens of Covenant weaponry. It looked like the figures where loading the weapons into service vehicles, trying to smuggle them into Quelt's DMZ.

"So, ONI wants you two to investigate and recover the NAV module, Camera equipment, and internal memory units."

"We're doing errands for ONI now? Should I start pressing your uniform, sir?" Violet said. She instantly wished she hadn't. Ramsey shot her a look of extreme irritation, his face frozen in a scowl. She looked straight down at her boots and scratched her head again.

"Anyway," he continued as though he hadn't heard what she said, " There's someone I want you to meet."

Ramsey muttered something into the microphone in his collar and returned to his holo-screens. The two Spartans exchanged confused glances as a rather flustered woman in a lab coat entered the room clutching a clipboard overflowing with charts and memos. Her brown hair was done up in a messy bun and her bangs covered her grey eyes.

"Sir!" she said saluting with her free hand. Ramsey, still fixated on his holo-screen, simply raised his hand to dismiss the woman.

"At ease. 46, 89, this is Dr. Sarah Westerly; our resident genetic analyst."

"A genetic analyst sir? Why would we need one of those?" Charlotte asked.

"Charlotte," Westerly said, folding her bangs behind her ear and adjusting her glasses, "Did it ever occur to you what the Covenant would want with DelMargio? What possible reasons the Covenant could have had for invading a fishing port in Quelt's poorest quarter? It's pretty simple actually: bacteria.

"We believe that the Covenant is interested in a particular bacteria that lives inside the local fish population. They must have already extracted the bacteria and tried to dispose of the evidence with that explosion. The bacteria have been documented dozens of time by wildlife biologists, but no research was ever done on their findings. I've been sifting through reports for hours."

"What do they need this bacteria for?" asked Violet. She had stopped staring at her boots long enough to join the conversation.

"We can't be sure. But that is where ONI needs your help. We need you two to find out." With that, Westerly saluted Ramsey and left the room in the same fashion she entered.

Ramsey's back was still turned to the Spartans. Charlotte could see that his dark hair was starting to grey. Ramsey was only 35, and Charlotte had thought that this was related to the stresses of fighting a war, but his hair was visibly grayer then the last time they had seen each other.

"I-I don't know about this, these Headhunter units. What about Silver Team? Are they being reassigned?"

"Hmmm?" he said turning around, "I admire your dedication to your squad mates. Yes, yes. Silver team is enroute as we speak to deal with an Insurrectionist uprising in New Verdania. But ONI has assure us that your safety is of the upmost-"

"-Sir, we're not stupid." Charlotte interrupted, "We know that these Headhunter units are suicide squads. You're giving us a death sentence. I've seen the reports. 100% casualty rates, ambushes, and likely capture. We were lucky we only lost one… "

Ramsey turned his head to the side and stared out of the large panoramic window in front of him. The planet loomed outside and the dark white fluffy clouds over the deep blue seas. It looked so calm, so peaceful; a sharp contrast to the tension in the bridge. Ramsey raised a hand to his chin, as if he was thinking carefully about what words he was to use next. However, it seemed that this was not the case.

"With all due respect Charlotte, you were given a death sentence quite some time ago. Spartan III's were designed as expendable soldiers in the first place. Spartans come and go, Lieutenant. That's a fact." He said sternly.

Charlotte had thought about that before, but hearing the painful truth from Ramsey felt different. The way it casually rolled off his tongue bothered her. He almost seemed smug about, as if he would throw away thousands of Spartans before even one insignificant inch of land was taken. Charlotte had heard the rumors, but she still had faith in her higher ups, until now. She couldn't see Ramsey's face, but she was sure there wouldn't be an ounce of guilt or empathy on it.

"You have your orders. Now leave." He finished. He raised his hand and the metallic doors behind the slid open. Violet lowered her head and slowly stepped out of the room, snapping her helmet in place. Charlotte stayed behind, her face frozen in an expression of anger and disbelief.

Violet continued walking down the narrow corridors of the


End file.
